NGOs in Asia: Issues in development (original) (raw)
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“Development NGOs: Agents of Foreign Aid or Vehicles of Cooperation?” (Michael Edwards) Discuss.
Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) were introduced in 1945 with the creation of Inter-governmental organisations (Willets, 2011, p.6). It is a notoriously broad term and is applied to a variety of different organisational forms (Vakil, 1997), therefore hard to define. However they are typically viewed as non-profit, voluntary and civic society based (Lewis & Kanji, 2009, p.9). This essay shall seek to highlight the main arguments which support Development NGOs (DNGO) being agents of foreign Aid: Providing for all beneficiaries through constant funding, promotion of development and monetary aid and lack of affiliation making them non bias. As well as the argument that foreign aid is a secondary purpose behind cooperation and the lack of DNGOs in capacity building, which all represent how they are not ‘agents of foreign aid’. This essay shall also attempt to address the reasons why DNGOs are vehicles of cooperation: the influence of alliance, involvement in the early stages of aid allocation, embracing of the Global South and the involvement of the government throughout planning. However, also discussing the impact of globalisation, ignorance to the core issue and the lack of substantial influence on states. Concluding that DNGOs are progressing from primarily providing foreign aid, to the understanding that cooperation is fundamental to global assistance and improving the global sphere.
Asia-Pacific Review The growing role of NGOs in ASEAN
The role and activities of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in Southeast Asia are increasing, says JoAnn Fagot Aviel, Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University. This growth is being encouraged both by the increasing emphasis, world-wide, on regionalization and by the attempts by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) to promote regional economic cooperation. Although in the past NGOs have been on the periphery of ASEAN, Aviel argues that the future of the Association may depend as much on the activities of NGOs as on those of ASEAN's governments and private enterprises. In this article, Aviel focuses on the role played by NGOs in the Asian region and their relationship with ASEAN. She predicts that NGO activity in Southeast Asia will continue to grow and forge links between people in the region.
This paper proposes a conceptual and methodological understanding of the nature and extent of NGO integration into state and donor systems that is based on a dynamic view of NGOs as multidimensional organisations with financial, political, interpersonal, legal, values a technical dimensions that vary across organisations, and produce a wide variety of interactions with the aid industry. NGOs' engagement with the World Bank is interpreted as a function of the interaction of these six dimensions. Through cooperation in projects, critical advocacy and the rapidly growing consultations on policy issues, NGOs' engagement with the World Bank grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. After identifying some of the factors that appear to affect whether and how an NGO is drawn into the aid system, the paper offers a set of research questions and priorities for scholars exploring the varied and conditional ways that NGOs are integrated into the aid system.
THE VARIED AND CONDITIONAL INTEGRATION OF NGOS IN THE AID SYSTEM: NGOs AND THE WORLD BANK
This paper proposes a conceptual and methodological understanding of the nature and extent of NGO integration into state and donor systems that is based on a dynamic view of NGOs as multidimensional organisations with financial, political, interpersonal, legal, values a technical dimensions that vary across organisations, and produce a wide variety of interactions with the aid industry. NGOs’ engagement with the World Bank is interpreted as a function of the interaction of these six dimensions. Through cooperation in projects, critical advocacy and the rapidly growing consultations on policy issues, NGOs’ engagement with the World Bank grew rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s. After identifying some of the factors that appear to affect whether and how an NGO is drawn into the aid system, the paper offers a set of research questions and priorities for scholars exploring the varied and conditional ways that NGOs are integrated into the aid system.
The Role and Impact of NGOs on the Development Landscape
Development is a fundamental part of the mandates of many NGOs. NGOs are important stakeholders in the development landscape where they have accrued extensive knowledge within the sector. They are high profile actors in the field of development both as providers of services to vulnerable individuals and communities and as policy advocates. Much of their work aims to strengthen community capacities through training, technical advice, exchange of experiences, research and policy advice. Yet there is considerable dissatisfaction within some quarters regarding their role, impact and intentions. This article provides a critical discussion on this topic looking at why NGOs matter, the ideological factors that help explain the rise of NGOs as well their advantages and disadvantages within the development landscape. This article also engages fully with the criticisms levelled against NGOs and also shows that NGO relations with governments may take different forms and go through many different phases and fluctuations. This article is a non-exhaustive assessment based on literature and research that includes academic studies, research commissioned by international organizations, donor agencies' reports, as well as government assessments and reports. Research on NGOs is vast, and NGOs have been subject to rich academic debates related to global governance, democratization and development. NGOs have become an integral part of the international aid architecture and contribute to the implementation of the multilateral aid agenda. Joint partnerships between governments, NGOs and the private sector are crucial to the development trajectory of any country. NGOs are central to development theory and practice and are likely to remain important actors for years to come. From the late 1980s onwards, NGOs rapidly assumed a far greater role and profile on the development landscape than they had previously. NGOs were celebrated by donors as being able to bring fresh solutions to complex and long standing development problems. The new attention given to NGOs at this time brought many far reaching changes to development thinking and practice as a consequence of new interest in the then alternative concepts such as participation, empowerment, gender and a range of people oriented approaches. Alongside such claims, too much became expected of NGOs. All too often NGOs were seen as the magic bullet that could unlock the disappointment, disillusionment and deadlock that characterised the world of development. Such views inevitably led to a backlash when evidence began to suggest otherwise. NGOs are an extremely diverse group of organisations which makes meaningful generalization difficult. NGOs play different roles and take very different shapes and forms within and across different country contexts. NGOs as an analytical category are complex and difficult to grasp as they are quite difficult to pin down analytically. This has generated a lot of debate on what is and what is not an NGO and the most suitable approaches for analyzing NGO roles in development. Many are externally funded while others rely heavily on locally mobilized resources. Some are well resourced and affluent while others live 1 The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of any particular agency
Government-NGO Relations in Asia: Prospects and Challenges for People-Centred Development
1995
Governments and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) in Asia face critical development challenges. This volume examines ways to improve the policy environment for NGOs in Asia so that they may contribute more effectively to the development process. The contributors identify the main factors which influence the policy environment for NGOs, characterize and compare the political space for NGOs, examine the roles that governments and international development agencies can play in supporting NGOs, and propose possible strategies and policy guidelines for improving government-NGO relations in Asia.
NGO's and Social Development, 2021
Today, there is increasing emergency of NGOs in Uganda and in the world at large. NGO's are really playing important role in promoting Socioeconomic development. This paper looks at the registration of NGO's specifically in Uganda and the legal requirements for the registration of an NGO; Funding of NGO's; challenges faced by NGOs today and the solutions; And Sustainability of NGO's.
The Rise and Stall of NGOs in Development
Polish Sociological Review 2014/1, pp.25-44
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) role in development evolved from marginal to major over the second half of the XX century. In the early 1990s the increase of support for NGOs in countries receiving foreign aid was an effect of donors’ attempts to circumvent the recipients’ state institutions as these were considered corrupt and/or ineffective. This support took place under the slogan of good governance. Both national and international NGOs remained the favored child of donor agencies up to 9/11, 2001. The superseding long war on terror had an impact on the strategy towards NGOs, too. Namely, it has been acknowledged that NGOs’ activities should undergo closer scrutiny. This approach tightened the control over NGOs and also resulted in national and international NGOs’ self-censorship.